FOUNDING PARTNER

Mr. Freudenstein is a Founding Partner of NEXT Investors. From 2013-2023 Alan was Managing Director and Co-Head of NEXT Investors at Credit Suisse Asset Management. Alan joined Credit Suisse in 2000, and prior to forming NEXT I, he oversaw the bank’s direct private investment portfolio on behalf of Credit Suisse’s Securities group.

Previously, Mr. Freudenstein was a Managing Director responsible for incubation and venture investments within the New World Ventures Group at the Bankers Trust Company. Prior to Bankers Trust, he was a management consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton and an equity research analyst at Salomon Brothers.

Mr. Freudenstein earned his B.A. in Economics from Johns Hopkins University and M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.

FOUNDING PARTNER

Mr. Grimaldi is a Founding Partner of NEXT Investors. From 2013-2023 Greg was Managing Director and Co-Head of NEXT Investors at Credit Suisse Asset Management. Greg joined Credit Suisse in 2000, and prior to forming NEXT I, he focused on making direct private equity investments on behalf of Credit Suisse’s Securities group.

Before joining Credit Suisse, Mr. Grimaldi was an associate at Insight Capital Partners, a venture capital firm. Prior to his position with Insight, he was an investment banker at Merrill Lynch.

Mr. Grimaldi earned his B.S.E and B.S. from the University of Pennsylvania.

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Mr. Khan joined the NEXT team in 2014. He was previously with Credit Suisse Equity Research where he covered IT hardware, networking and telecom equipment starting
in 2011.

Prior to his role at Credit Suisse, Talal was a Consumer and Commercial Finance Investment/Merchant Banking Analyst at FG Advisors.

Talal received his CFA Certification in June 2012. Mr. Khan earned a dual B.S. with high honors in Finance and Management from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

PRINCIPAL

Mr. Hrynkiewicz joined the NEXT team in 2015. He previously spent more than two years covering internet and online gaming in the Credit Suisse Equity Research division. In addition to normal coverage responsibilities, Nick conducted due diligence on, and helped bring to market, a number of Credit Suisse-led public offerings. 

Nick received his CFA certification in September 2018. He earned his B.S. in Finance from Lehigh University. 

SENIOR ASSOCIATE

Mr. Balaban joined NEXT Investors in 2021.
Prior to joining NEXT, he was Director of Market Operations at Prime Trust, a financial infrastructure fintech. He has held finance roles at a single-family alternative asset manager and in the real estate investments group at Guardian Life. 

Robb graduated from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University with a B.S. in Finance.

SENIOR ADVISOR

Frank Fanzilli has been a Senior Advisor to NEXT since 2015. He is an IT professional with 30+ years of executive leadership and operational experience, in both financial services and enterprise software.  

Frank currently serves as a director of Sapience Analytics, Portfolio BI, and ReadyWorks as well as Airiam, iBoss, and Skytap.  He has served on the boards of PeopleSoft, CommVault, Avaya, Interwoven (Chairman), nLayers (Co-Founder), Calypso Software (Lead Director), Skytap, Krystallize, and others.  He is an independent board member for the Linux Foundation. Prior to becoming involved directly with the technology community, Frank served as the Global Chief Information Officer of Credit Suisse First Boston, where he was a Managing Director and a member of the Operating Committee.  

Frank is a frequent speaker and author published in The Financial Times, The Washington Post, and CIO Magazine. He speaks at events for Forrester, Gartner, among others. Frank holds a B.S. degree in management from Fairfield University, where he serves on the Advisory Board of the School of Engineering, and an M.B.A. in Finance from New York University, where he graduated With Distinction and was the Marcus Nadler Scholar. 

SENIOR ADVISOR

Todd Sandoz has over 30 years in markets businesses and risk taking at Global Investment Banks and has lived and managed major securities businesses in the United States, Europe, and Asia. Most recently he was Co-Head of Equities at Barclays, with responsibility for the Global Equities Business across Equity Cash and Syndicate, Equity Derivatives, and Prime. Prior to joining Barclays, Todd was Head of Global Equities and Execution Services at Nomura, with a remit that included all aspects of the Global Equity franchise including Instinet and Market Structure investments.

Prior to his time at Nomura, Todd and spent 17 years at Credit Suisse where his many roles included Global Head of Currencies and Short Term Interest Rate Trading, Co-Head of Equities for the Americas, Global Head of Cash Trading (which included Block Trading, Syndicate Risk and Trading, Program and Electronic Trading, as well as Market Structure Investments), Head of Asia Pacific Equity Derivatives and Equity Trading.

Todd began his career as Convertible Bond and Equity Derivative PM and Trader at Citadel Investments. Todd graduated with a BA in Economics from Yale University, and serves on the Board of Columbia's Climate School, the Corporation of Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, and the Yale School of the Environment Advisory Board.

ADVISOR

Anthony Abenante is an operating professional with 35+ years of experience growing global businesses at some of the world’s leading financial, brokerage, market structure, and investment firms.  He is currently serving as board member or advisor to several fintech and technology-leveraged companies.

Anthony most recently served as Global Head of Equities at Credit Suisse / UBS.  Prior to his role at CS, he was CEO of Instinet Incorporated.  He previously was head of US Equities and Global Program Trading at Nomura and Head of Institutional Sales at Investment Technology Group (ITG). Prior to ITG, Anthony led the development of many groundbreaking technologies in capital markets and market structure, including Chi-X Global, and the first commercially available street-side algorithmic trading platform.

Anthony holds a BSc degree from Carnegie Mellon and currently serves on the Board of Trustees at Big Brothers Big Sisters of NYC.

ADVISOR

Richard Spitler is a co-founder and Managing Director of Infolinx. Before founding InfoLinx, Rick founded and built Curinos--a  banking data and analytics company serving major North American and International banks.  During the 20 years he headed the company, he innovated several benchmarking and analytical optimization approaches to managing the revenues of banks.  

Prior to Curinos, he was a partner at Booz, Allen & Hamilton for 15 years and worked across a wide range of industries. In 2022, Mr. Spitler was appointed Chairman of the Board of Directors of Thinknum, a NEXT II portfolio company.

Rick has a math undergraduate degree from William and Mary, a Masters in Computer Science from Rensselaer and an MBA from New York University's Stern School of business

ADVISOR

Bina Kalola’s professional expertise spans from analyst to lawyer to venture investing, innovation, and entrepreneurship. As an executive at Bank of America & Merrill Lynch, she led successful, complex transactions of all sizes globally and was appointed to 4 global entrepreneurial roles leading across strategic venture investing, electronic trading strategy, innovation, and data.

Her success leading outside-in strategy, creative solutions, and “connecting the dots” across people and opportunities, has led to transformative industry growth transactions. Her product breadth is unique, encompassing institutional capital formation, trading markets, banking, and wealth management, as well as AI technology solutions and data opportunities.

In 2015 Bina was named in Institutional Investor magazine’s “Trading Technology 40”, a list of the financial services industry’s top technology innovators and most recently in 2023 for her impact in Markets and leadership throughout her career, she was awarded the “Neil DeSena Market Advocate” by Markets Media.

ADVISOR

Indrajit Bardhan is a strategic executive and seasoned business leader with 30 years of experience in prime services and broader equities, driving commercial outcomes at three major institutions: Credit Suisse, Merrill Lynch, and Goldman Sachs. 

Over his career, Indrajit has managed risk and trading, built and restructured businesses, and helped banks through the financial crisis. He has extensive product knowledge in all aspects of prime brokerage, clearing, Delta 1 execution and financing, a broad client network among hedge funds, and industry‐leading expertise in bank funding and capital considerations.

Indrajit has a Ph.D. and M.S. in Operations Research from Columbia University and a B.Tech in Mechanical Engineering from the IIT Mumbai. He is based in New York City. 

ADVISOR

Ilan Nissan is the Head of Private Equity/M&A at Goodwin Procter and is based in New York City and Miami. Mr. Nissan's clients include the most sophisticated and well-known asset managers in the world including top-tier private equity and venture capital funds, hedge funds, family offices and multi-strategy investors. Mr. Nissan also represents a number of "A" list celebrities in their investing and related activities.

Previously, Mr. Nissan was Chair of the Mergers & Acquisitions group at O’Melveny & Myers. Mr. Nissan also was a partner at O’Sullivan Graev & Karabell LLP and began his career with Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, each in New York City.

Since 2003, Mr. Nissan has been an Adjunct Professor of Law at Columbia University Law School, where he teaches a course focusing on mergers and acquisitions, private equity, venture capital and legal transactional strategies. Mr. Nissan speaks five languages and is proudly from Ramat-Gan, Israel.

ADVISOR

Balaji Gopalakrishnan is an accomplished finance professional with deep experience in the areas of trading, risk management, and technology.  He has worked at a number of premier financial institutions for over 25 years including BlackRock, Goldman Sachs, and Credit Suisse.  

Balaji has an MS in Electrical Engineering from Polytechnic University (NYU/Tandon School of Engineering) and is a Chartered Financial Analyst. He spends his time between Brooklyn, NY, and Winston-Salem, NC.

Balaji will start as an advisor in April, 2025.

ADVISOR

Mr. Rishi Nangalia is the Co-Founding Partner & serves as Managing Partner at OPCO Advisory. He serves as Managing Director at Newbold Partners. He also serves Board Member & Advisor at Street Context. He serves as a Board Member at Automated Data.

He served as a Strategic Advisor and Board Member at MayStreet, NEXT II portfolio company. Most recently he served as Global Head of Buy Side Trading at Refinitiv, which he joined as part of its acquisition of execution management system (EMS) provider REDI Global Technologies. At REDI, he served as CEO, leading the firm from its 2013 spinout from Goldman Sachs to a consortium of global investment banks and investment firms until its acquisition by Refinitiv in 2017.

Before REDI, he spent 13 years in various leadership roles in product, business development, strategic investing, and strategy within Goldman Sachs' electronic trading businesses. He holds an MBA degree in Finance & Entrepreneurship from Columbia Business School & he also completed an MS in Real Estate Development from Columbia University.